Our recent whiskey-graphic, led to some requests for a similar graphic on wine. Based on our research, wine appears to have a simpler “process chemistry” but more complicated “flavor chemistry” than whiskey. While we are still anchoring this graphic in the “production process chemistry” its major focus is on how individual steps affect the flavor of a wine.
A recent trip along the Bourbon Trail of Kentucky inspired the above summary (which started as rough notes from tours of four distilleries) which compares: (1) Whiskey Production Recipe (2) Whiskey Production Chemistry and (3) Distinguishing characteristics of major whiskey types. More detailed information can be found in the references below.
The graphic above summarizes ingredients that are most characteristic of a world-region’s recipes. It was inspired by a 2011 paper that examined connections between RECIPES – INGREDIENTS – FLAVOR-CHEMICALS.1 A major finding of this paper was that: A handful of common ingredients best distinguish and define Western and Eastern recipes [and flavor-chemical networks].
The graphic below provides a more detailed description on region-specific ingredients:
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The chemistry that underlies the browning of bread. meats, etc. was first defined in 1912 by Louis-Camille Maillard and involves the polymerization of sugars and proteins. While this reaction is obviously messy (i.e. has many different pathways), the dominant chemical mechanisms were identified in a classic paper by John Hodge in 1953 and are outlined in the figure above. As you can see, bread-browning is mainly: amine(protein)-activated carbonyl(sugar) polymerization.
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Taste is only one component of the flavor of food, with others including:
As an aspiring cook, I have found it helpful to summarize the chemistry behind each part of a foods flavor so that I can better understand how to control each of these variables. In the figure above I have summarized the chemical basis for each type of “taste” and food’s that represent characteristic combination.
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Most plant pigments seem to have evolved as “sunscreens” for the photosynthetic machinery of the plant wherein they filter out high energy (potentially damaging) light that cannot be used for photosynthesis. Chemically there are only a few classes of these “sunscreens” whose light absorbing properties lead to rich array of colors that we observe throughout the plant kingdom(see figure above). Below we discuss each class in terms of common observations (e.g. autumn leaves) and cooking considerations.
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All the complex aromas associated with cooking are caused by an ensemble of volatile (small) organic molecules that typically arise from plant material or cooking. As can be seen in the figure above, characteristic aromas arise from small organic molecules with a characteristic functional group: e.g. “fruity” = lactones; “green” = long chain-aldehydes or alcohols; “spicy” = phenols; etc.
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